33 Acres Brewing Company | Minimal Craft Beers

Since early 2013, Vancouver has seen a pretty big surge of interest in craft beers. Microbreweries have been popping up left and right; some of the popular names include Parallel 49 Brewing Co, Coal Harbour Brewing, and, of course, Granville Island Brewery. 33 Acres Brewing Company opened up last year, and certainly differentiates itself by being more of a tasting room – they’re somewhere between a pub and a snazzy coffee shop.

Brilliant clean minimal design

The design of 33 Acres Brewing is brilliantly minimal – reminiscent of Danish design. On the left of the shop, they actually have a number of branded products for sale. These include tshirts, sweaters, Growler bottles, and more!

33 Acres serves up beer in a number of formats – tasting flights, individual glasses, jars, and Growler bottles.

33 Acres’ Craft Beer Menu

At the time of my visit, they had three beers on tap that are made directly in the shop: 33 Acres of Life, which is a lager/ale hybrid; 33 Acres of Ocean, which is a pale ale; and 33 Acres of Melaco, which is a dark porter. Recently, 33 Acres released a 4th brew – 33 Acres of Darkness, which is a black lager!

In addition to beer, 33 Acres also serves up some snacks and coffee. The menu highlights their static offerings, such as their meat platter and Earnest Icecream scoops. On their website, they also list some of their daily food specials. These food items range from external food trucks and local eateries to in-house creations!

Snacks and Coffee Menu

Pour over station with Bows Arrows Coffee

One aspect of their store design really caught my eye. How cool is it to have a water dispenser attached to their table??

Totally cool water dispenser.

In the back, you can actually see 33 Acres’ brewing equipment.

Glimpse of their brewing facility.

I went with a bunch of friends, so we actually managed to try out a number of beers and food. Being a Saturday, 33 Acres food offering was some in-house waffles. BC1 and BC2 both got the waffle dish – BC1 went all out and got a scoop of Earnest Icecream’s Whiskey Hazelnut to go with it too!

Earnest Icecream

The waffle dish was a lot bigger than we expected! Chocolate waffles with bacon and a load of butter and syrup!

Waffle Weekend

We also got a Charcuterie Meat and Bread plate to share! Very good sausage (I think from Oyama Sausage) that went quite well with the beer.

Charcuterie Meat and Bread – $15

With the beer, a couple of us got the tasting flights – 6oz glasses of all three of their beers on tap!

Beer Flight! – $8 for 3 beers

Being pretty early in the day, not everyone opted to have a beer. That being said, everyone tried a sip of each – the overwhelming favourite was the 33 Acres of Life (lager/ale hybrid). For me, I actually preferred the 33 Acres of Melaco, which was a much darker beer with a coffee and molasses flavour to it.

Overall, 33 Acres Brewing Company’s space is awesome and the beers are top notch. The direction that 33 Acres is going certainly reminds me of a microbrewery I visited in Denmark, Mikkeller. I hope they continue to expand and create more awesome drinking spaces like this one!